The present invention relates to novelty items and in particular such items as pupppets and masks forming three-dimensional caricatures of animals, birds, etc.
It is particularly desirable to form three-dimensional caricatures of animals, birds, etc. for use as novelty items such as masks, greeting cards or hand puppets. Such items can be formed of paper or plastic and sold at relatively low prices.
It is particularly desirable that such items be easily constructed, shipped and stored to maintain the price at a low level. In order to achieve this desirable result and yet present a three-dimensional caricature, the item must be capable of being easily manipulated from a flat form to a three-dimensional shape. For storage after use, it is desirable that the item be collapsible again to a flat form, but also again be easily manipulated to a three-dimensional shape.
This prior art has sought to provide such novelty items. Typical of a first method of forming such structures in U.S. Pat. No. 3,183,622 where a complex blank is folded to form a novelty device. The necessity of forming the structure from a relatively complex blank requires complicated equipment and machinery to form the blank and the process of forming such blanks generates waste. The invention as herein described in preferably constructed from a single square sheet the formation of which does not require complex equipment nor does the formation generate significant amounts of waste.
A prior art teaching of a folded novelty device generated from a single square sheet is found in U.S. Pat. No. 502,896. While this reference teaches a structure similar to that of the invention disclosed herein, there are several differences between the structures that make the prior art markedly inferior in function to the present invention. The absence of diagonal folds in the outer sheets shown as a in FIG. 5 of the cited patent prevents the device from being folded flat in the manner of the present invention. Furthermore, the cited patent does not disclose the use of character defining, stiffening members affixed to the folded sheet in such a manner as to provide an integral structure that can be used as a puppet or the like. Nor does it disclose the use of the folded sheet as a part of a mask.
When the present invention is constructed in the puppet embodiment, with projections from the basic structure, the puppet can only be folded flat while maintaining the appearance of the puppet with the addition of the fold lines not taught or suggested in the prior art. The manner of folding a puppet embodiment allows essentially flat packaging of such a puppet with no need to reform the puppet structure to see the appearance of the character depicted by the puppet.
Furthermore, if the projections of the puppet embodiment of the invention were placed on the prior art structure in an analogous position the folding of the prior art structure to the smallest flat structure would yield a flat structure significantly larger than the flat folded structure of the present invention.
It is the object of the present invention to alleviate the difficulites of the prior art by providing a base structure for a folded novelty device that can be formed from a simple blank.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a base for a puppet structure that can be folded flat while maintaining the appearance of the character depicted by the puppet.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a base for a puppet that can be folded flat and displayed in a package or container of minimum size.
A further object of the invention is to provide a flexible spacial separation for components of a mask that can be collapsed to a relatively flat configuration while maintaining the appearance of the character depicted by the mask.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novelty item at a minimum cost by developing the item from a simple blank that can be preformed and folded without the need for complex machinery.
Finally, it is an object of this invention to provide three-dimensional novelty items, i.e., hand puppets, greeting cards and masks that may be packaged in a flat compact form; repeatedly opened to a three-dimensional shape and reformed to the original flat form with relative ease and without detracting from the quality of the novelty item.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.